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Bruges (Brugge in Dutch) is a city in northwest Belgium connected by canal with Zeebrugge, its outer port on the North Sea. The city centre has hardly changed since the Middle Ages and is now a popular tourist center and Belgium’s most visited town.

The first fortifications were built in the 1st century BC to protect the coastal area against pirates. In 862 AD, the Count of Flanders reinforced the fortification to protect the area from the Normans who had already set up Bryggia (mooring place) for their boats in the mouth of the river Zwin. It is from this time that coins appeared with the name Bryggia on it as well. For these reasons, experts believe that name of Bruges originates from Norse rather than the more obvious theory deriving it from the Dutch word ‘brug’, meaning bridge.

The young settlement acquired city rights on July 27, 1128 and built itself a first protective wall. From 1050s, the Zwin started gradually to silt up and caused the city to lose its direct access to the sea. However, the Dunkirk flood (1134) created the Zwin estuary and caused the River Reie to overflow into the estuary thus creating a navigable port with direct access to the North Sea. Bruges’ Golden Age started in this period.

Bruges experienced its Golden Age from the 12th to the 14th century, as a wool market and weaving industry. Bruges was the main link to the trade of the Mediterranean, housed international banks and foreign embassies, and opened Europe's first stock exchange (The Bourse) in 1309. Starting around 1500, the Zwin channel, which had given the city its prosperity, also started silting and traffic from the North Sea ceased. Bruges soon fell behind Antwerp and became impoverished.

Due to the centuries of economic decline in Bruges, the city centre of Bruges has hardly changed and most of its medieval architecture is still intact. By 1830, the world’s first tourists (Victorian English) discovered the medieval town and Bruges has been a popular tourist destination ever since. It has two medieval cores, the Markt and the Burg, and there are many beautiful medieval buildings. The Church of Our Lady is the tallest structure in the city and one of the tallest brickwork towers in the world. The altarpiece of the large chapel enshrines the sculpture Madonna and Child created by Michelangelo. International tourism has boomed and in 2002 Bruges was designated Cultural Capital of Europe.

The commercial and industrial revival of Bruges began only in 1895, with the start of extensive repairs to its port; in 1907 the port of Zeebrugge was built by the Germans for their U-boats and the Zeebrugge canal was opened. The port greatly expanded in the 1970s and early 1980s and is now an international passenger port with ferries to the United Kingdom and a seafront resort with hotels. It is also Belgium's most important fishing port, and the central port for Europe's automotive industry. It's the most modern and second biggest port of Belgium, still behind Antwerp.